STATE CONTROL.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1918, Page 6

STATE CONTROL.

The new issue (From Our Own Correspondent). ' Wellington, September 11. State Control is very much in the air just now as a result of the demand of the National Council of the Licensed Trade that the issue should be placed on the ballot paper at the next licensing poll, but few people seem to realise the full scope and significance of the term, and none to know what particular form of State Control the promoters of the present movement are contemplating. Several Ministers of the Grown, a number of members of Parliament and many social workers have expressed themselves as favorable to the extinction of the proprietary interest in the Trade as a means towards the removal of its admitted evils, but scarcely one of them, has given us an original thought or a hew idea on the subject. In these circumstances it may not be uninteresting nor unprofitable, to glance for a moment at a scheme which has been suggested by a Wellington gentleman who confesses himself unable to make a satisfying choice between continuance and nolicense. Hitherto he has voted with the Prohibitionists, riot because he thinks they are offering a just or wise or final' solution of the problem, but because he believes the acceptance of their panacea jvould clear the way for a more effective and a far more enduring reform. This attitude may not be very admirable, savouring, as it does, of doing evil that good may come, 'but it is not material to his scheme and so may be allowed to pass. ACQUISITION, He would confine the State's acquisition to the liquor trade and to the liquor trade alone. That is, he would take over only such parts of the hotel as were required for the supply of liquor under proper conditions, and would leave the proprietors in undisturbed possession of the rest of their premises. But he would make the importation, manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors of all kinds a national monopoly in which no private individual, 'directly or indirectly, would have any monetary interest. The hotelkeeper, the members of his family and his bona fide lodgers would enjoy the premises during the hours and • on the conditions prescribed by the existing law. The bars would bo converted into refreshment rooms, with easy access from the street, where in addition to alcoholic liquors, tea and coffee and other light refreshments, not meals, would ba provided at strictly moderate rates. The whole system would be under the control of a responsible Board of Commissioners, freed from political influence and interference, who would be entrusted with the appointment of a manager for each refreshment room, who in turn would have the appointment of his assistants and be accountable to the Board for the good conduct and efficiency of the business. The Board would make arrangements for the supplies and would fix the rates at which refreshments would be sold. COMPENSATION, The compensation to be paid to the proprietors of the hotels would be based upon the difference hetween the value of their houses when licensed to sell liquor and when converted into lodging and boarding houses with the State refreshment room attached. This difference would be determined by competent valuers appointed by the Government whose valuation inight be reviewed, on appeal by either party, by a properly constituted Court. Included in the amount finally determined upon would be a sum to cover the loss of profit the proprietor of the premises might have reasonably expected to obtain over a certain number of years from the sale of alcoholic liquors. The total amount would be paid in bonds bearing interest at the current rate, for similar State securities and maturing on a date coinciding with a number of years for which compensation was paid. When the licensee were not the owner his share of the aecuring profits would be assessed by the same vnhieror and paid to him in cash or bonds, at hi? own option, and the amount deducted from the payment due to the owner. The State would have the option of acquiring any part of the premises adjoining the bar or the whole of the premises at a valuation and; would bear the cost of structural alterations made necessary by its acquisition and the nationalisation of the liquor A FAIR PPvOSPECT. This, of course, is the barest outline of the author's scheme- A hundred and one detail cannot be recited Oiore. It must be stated, however, that he would insist upon*the Trade, even when nationalised, remaining under the direct control of the electors. To ibegin with he would accept the issues proposed by the National Council—National Continuance, National Control and National Prohibi-.i tion—decided by the single transferable .vote, popularly known as preferential voting. This would ensure a, majority of the »<ctors getting, what they liked best, or, at any rate, securing themselves against what they disliked most, be it continuance, prohibition or State control. His own predilection is frankly for Stats control, and he quotes What has happened at Homo under this system as a conclusive answer to all the objections (hat they have been urged against it in the past'by both the friends of continuance and the friends of prohibition, whom lie thinks must share the responsibility for the unsatisfactory condition that sutu round the Trade. Whichever issue might be carried he would have them all, with the necessary alteration in the wording of "continuance" submitted to the electors everv third vear. His own personal opinion, however, is that in the event of State control 'being carried it would have proved such a success even at the end of three years that the poll would he simplv an 'alteration of _tbo electors' verdict, to be reiterated and reiterated at succeeding polls, till the consumption of liquor became purely a personal ques-1 tion and not an occasion of political strife at all-